Peace Train: 'The China Syndrome' -- not just a movie

Though the film is (partly) fantasy, nuclear catastrophes are real

'C hi-na Syn-drome: A hypothetical sequence of events following the meltdown of a nuclear reactor, in which the core melts through its containment structure..." -- Wikipedia

On Wednesday evening (12/12/2012) at 7 p.m. at the Left Hand Book Collective, close to Broadway and the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in conjunction with Left Hand Books, will show the 1979 thriller movie "The China Syndrome," starring Jane Fonda, as a reporter, Jack Lemmon as the hero whistleblower and Michael Douglas as a cameraman. The three gradually determine that they are witnesses to a sinister cover-up. The film is about complex technological systems, how they can fail and in some cases a resulting cover-up of facts is intended to keep the truth from the public.

A short discussion will follow the showing about the implications of nuclear power, lack of transparency and lack of democratic process.

Unfortunately, the film isn't pure fantasy. It was released by coincidence only 12 days before the nuclear accident at Three-Mile Island nuclear power plant, which involved a partial meltdown.

According to Dr. Janette D. Sherman in the December "Counterpunch," in a review of Joe Mangano's new book, "Mad Science, The Nuclear Power Experiment," governments and corporations lie, cover-up and maintain secrecy as they harm our planet and us.

According to Dr. Sherman, there are many nuclear catastrophes that Mangano chronicles, along with their subsequent cover-ups. For example, the Three-Mile Island catastrophe, the Nevada and Marshall Island nuclear bomb tests, and the Chernobyl and Fukushima tragedies, to name but a few.

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According to the New York Times in July 2012, Japanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion that they forced workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to so they could stay on the job longer.

Mangano reports on a nuclear accident at the Santa Susana site in Ventura County, close to Los Angeles, in 1959, that is "one of the best-kept secrets in the history of nuclear power." He describes the toxic waste and radiation that spewed forth from the plant as still being detectable today.

He cites a near meltdown of the Fermi-1 nuclear reactor that nearly destroyed Detroit in 1968.

Come and see the film and you will understand more fully what we are up against.

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